Behind Green Eyes
by shywr1ter
Summary: ML, as their lives start to intertwine...a slice of an afternoon as they each learn a bit about the other.


_DISCLAIMER & SUCH: They're not mine. Wish they were, but then, I'm new to this, to them, so I'm the last to quibble._

_MORE EXCUSES: I'm still pretty new to the DA episodes but they're so great, with such terrific potential, I couldn't wait and be better educated before diving in. Please forgive any bloopers caused by my being too anxious to get my mind right first._

_TIME FRAME: Early, early in the working relationship, Season 1. Just learning about each other..._

The phone rang several times in Max's ear before a male voice came on the line–not the one she'd expected. "Hey, Bling, is he there?" she tried.

"No, Max, he left about an hour ago. He didn't expect to be back for a while–told me not to wait around, it'd be late afternoon, at least."

Damn–was he going somewhere that he wanted her along? He could have waited, if so–she tried not to feel the prickle of guilt that she had been so long to call back, even though the blame lay on that thief who sold her batteries that lasted only a week in her pager before dying unexpectedly. It took nearly ninety minutes in line to get batteries back into her pager, where she found two calls from Logan queued up for her to call back.

"Did he say what's up?"

"No–other than it wasn't far. I told him the Aztek was about empty but he didn't want me to go fill it; he was only going a few blocks–no checkpoints."

So he wasn't going far, and not leaving Sector 9. "Okay. Will you tell him I called, and I'm sorry, but didn't get the call til just now?"

"Sure."

"Thanks, Bling." But she hesitated. "Hey, do you think he's okay? I mean, he's not off trying to save the world without back-up, is he?"

"No..." but there was concern in the man's voice. "He's been pre-occupied the last few days, though. Something's been on his mind, but he's not said anything. Nothing unusual that I've seen from any of the regular sources."

So, no weird requests for help, no hot tips on the Informant Net or leads from the police contacts. But she'd seen it too, a melancholy from him, making him more distant than usual, less ready to be pleasant or cynical or even cranky, just...

Just nothing; he was fine; he wasn't a child...and Bling let him go without too much concern. He'd be fine, and she had work pressing. She came back to earth.

"Cool. Thanks" she hung up the pay phone to hear Normal griping in familiar cadence, with her co-workers responding in their usual, unimpressed tones. "Max? Hot run, missy; now..."

"Yeah, yeah..." She took the package, and glanced over to the two just taken by Original Cindy–both Sector 9. If there was a run anyway... she followed her girl toward the door to say low, out of Normal's earshot, "hey, OC, wait–you've got a Sector 9 run?"

"Yeah, boo–where you off to?"

"Local, but hot–look, would you mind a trade?:

"You'd take two all the way out to 9 for one here? What's the dealio?" She peered at Max, eyes narrowed, then answered her own question, "Oh, Rich Boy's in Sector 9–were you thinkin' of making another stop for a few knick-knacks, or just a bit of eye candy?" Seeing Max start to draw breath to protest, she interrupted, "I know, it's not like that. Sure, boo, whatever–it's an easier run for me all around. Knock yourself out."

"Thanks, OC. And tell Normal whatever you want when you get back, I don't care." She straddled her bike and added. "Not sure how long I'll be, but I hope it won't be much more than a regular run."

"Uh-huh. Just go, and we'll figure it out as usual."

Max hopped on her bicycle and sped off through the alley, cutting through private drives and yards in a dash to get the packages out of the way so she could look for Logan, not slowing until she got into an area of Sector 9 within a mile of his building. At least he was likely to be found fairly near his car, and his car wasn't too easy to stash out of sight, especially when after stashing, the guy had to make his way out and back to it again on wheels.

What the hell was up with this, anyway? He'd gotten to her, she knew, but she thought she'd had it under control. But this latest melancholy shook her, the look of such sadness in those amazing eyes...with a deep breath, she made her way through the streets to make one delivery, then the next, before starting back again methodically to track through the streets near his home...

It didn't take long; she spotted his Aztek not a mile and a half away from Fogle Towers. Slowing, she looked around but saw no one nearby the lone vehicle as it sat along a road that curved gently back into the park-like landscape of a cemetery.

Max shivered. This might put off curious on-lookers for an informant who wanted a quiet meet, but it just didn't seem like Logan's style. The cemetery was well-tended and surprisingly intact, green and lush in the rainy Seattle spring, as quiet as if it were miles from the city. Still, the maudlin trappings still gave her a chill, almost as if prophetic: she'd been trained to pay respects for a fallen comrade, then move on. Here, the place seemed to lock sadness and mourning into a timeless capsule, an eternal reminder that death was waiting, just around the corner, wrapped in a beautiful, serene image. Max knew better, that death was ugly and cruel. Was it dishonest to make a cemetery so pretty?

Softly alighting from the bicycle and crossing to lay it beside Logan's car, she quickly shook off her thoughts and moved off the gravelly pavement, with its crunching sounds under her feet, to walk back along the roadway on the grassy lawns. She heard or saw nothing of Logan, and wondered if he were even nearby. Looking toward a small, stone building, she moved toward it, noting one or two similar structures at a distance, each appearing to have only one entrance, no windows. Unconsciously, she frowned a little in concern. She might not have known him too long, but already recognized that he knew better than to walk into a meet with only one way in or out–didn't he? She circled around the small structure, marble, by the look of it, to come toward the open entry. From inside, there was no sound, no movement that she could discern–until a tiny shaft of sunshine fell across the entry way and along the mausoleum floor to glint off metal, catching Max's eye, as Logan's chair soundlessly shifted forward only bare inches...and as she shifted slightly to watch, she saw him lean forward to carefully trace away a tiny bit of green from the raised lettering, maybe a piece of greenery left by another visitor, another day...

As he sat back with a soft sigh she could see the names and dates borne on the heavy, brass plaques ...Logan Robert Cale, Sr...Sara Hopkins Cale...his mother and father...the date of his mother's death, the same spring day as this one, many years earlier.

Was is possible he called to ask her to come here, with him? His parents had been gone a long time, and Logan and she were only occasional business associates, not like that–no, it couldn't be why he called. She had just stumbled on a private moment that he'd want to keep private and she would go, leave him to his visit, leave a message on his machine. She'd talk with him later...

But she couldn't leave. She felt herself drawn in by the silence, by his pain. Even barely seeing his profile, more behind him than not, she could tell from the way he sat, from the way he moved, he was aching. The only thing she knew about his family was that they were the source of his fortune and that they were apparently at arm's length–no visits or calls that she noticed, no cards or photos or drawings on the 'fridge. Somehow she knew it wasn't just an Eyes Only-precaution.

So rapt she was that she missed the signs–or waited too long despite them...as she stood in the doorway, looking at the lonely figure, Logan sighed again, deeply...and pivoted, to go...

"Max--" His green eyes, still sad and lifetimes older than they should be, nonetheless flickered with question at her appearance. "What are you doing here?"

She expected him to be irritated that she'd appeared–or embarrassed, or at least prickly that she'd followed him. Anything but this–quiet, surprised at the unexpected visit, but nothing more– the ghosts of the place still haunted him, foreclosing all other reaction. "You paged me, and by the time I got it and called in, Bling said you were off on an errand, close to home–I didn't know if you'd needed me to come along, and saw your car..." the words tumbled, uncharacteristically breathless in the stillness.

The surprise softened to understanding, maybe even a gentle smile. "Oh–no," he shook his head, looking away. "It was something else–nothing pressing." He considered her, her awkwardness seeming to reach him, and his smile widened a little. "Were you here long?"

"No, I...just a few minutes, I didn't want to interrupt..."

He nodded, not moving, his smile still lingering. He was silent for a few moments, then offered, softly, "I don't come here very often...maybe not often enough...but every year, on the third..." he glanced away, involuntarily back toward the plaques. "My parents." He looked back up to her, eyes still showing the pain she'd seen in the set of his shoulders, the slowness of his movements.

"And your mother died on May 3rd..."

"...when I was thirteen," he explained.

What could she say? "I'm sorry." At least he'd _had_ parents, she snorted to herself–then reminded herself that this wasn't about her...and he looked as if even this many years later he was as pained for having had and lost parents as she was for never having had any.

But his soft smile quirked again, this time the smile reaching his eyes, at least a little. "It was a long time ago" he sighed, the ghosts fading a bit with his exhale. "And they weren't around for any of this, the Pulse, any of the craziness...for the chair." His eyes were far away for another moment, then he looked back to see her, the smile fading slightly with the return to the present. "At least there's that." Another pause, and he allowed, "I would have hated her to see me like this..."

"She would've had a problem with it?"

His brow furrowed momentarily as he said softly, "I'd like to think that she wouldn't..." He wavered, then a smile smoothed his brow. "No, I know she wouldn't. I mean, she'd be upset and worried for me, all the mom stuff...but no...she'd say it didn't matter, that it was still me, on my feet or not..." He was quiet again but now musing a little, and dared, in looking up to Max, to say, "You remind me a lot of her."

"Really?" Max shifted, eyebrows up. Somehow, here and now, that was significant...

He thought a moment, then actually half laughed, ruefully, glancing up at the chocolate eyes then away. "No, not really." Shaking his head, he added quickly, "not in a _lot_ of ways, but...yes, in important ways. In things you would say...things you would do. She'd like you, a lot."

Logan's words made her shiver a little, and that, in turn, made her uncomfortable with her response. Where did it come from? How could such simple words from this man mean so much? To shake it off, she tried, "What about your father? You were, what...fifteen...?"

Logan nodded, a shrug belying his poker face of keeping the smile intact. "He was gone a lot... off at work... and I was off at school." He looked up at the trees in the distance beyond her, then focused back on her face. "After my mom died, he sent me to boarding school with my cousins. Before then, well..." The smile never wavered, but he repeated, again with the same shrug, "he was gone a lot." Logan looked to the beautiful face and graceful form, there with him, spending time with him in his family's crypt, a chimera without a family in any usual sense of the word and consumed with finding those raised with her, listening to his half-muttered musings about family long-gone, a loving mother and consumed father...a woman who danced on the wind and was restless fifteen minutes after arrival anywhere...Logan suddenly recognized the depths of compassion and care she held inside, even if she yet was too afraid to let them show. He was touched that she'd stayed–for him–and needed to let her have a graceful exit. "Look–you've probably got our boss taking your name in vain already, you've been here a while. Want a ride back to work?"

"Nah–I can get back just as fast on my bike, what with alleys and cross-block short cuts." She had seen a change in his amazing eyes, saw an appreciation grow there that she knew was for her company, and felt the uncharacteristic warmth of a blush cross her cheeks. "But thanks."

"Sure." He moved to push his way out the mausoleum and, side by side, they made their way back to their vehicles in comfortable silence. As they neared his car and he opened the locks with his remote, he stopped to offer, "Hey–it's not too long 'til dinner time–will you be done with work before midnight?"

She stopped as he did and turned to face him. "I'm on call til 6 and not a minute later." She smiled.

"Well, what would you say to Beef Burgundy?"

"I'd ask if it will it be done before midnight"

He actually laughed, softly. "How about 6, and not a minute later?"

"Then I'd say it sounds perfect."

"Good." He almost looked like himself again. She was surprised how important that was to her. She turned to retrieve the bicycle she'd left by the passenger side of his Aztek when she heard him say quietly, "Max?"

She turned, waiting.

"...thanks." When she shrugged, suggesting she'd done nothing, he said, "you gave me a glimpse of my family–my parents–with a different set of eyes. And you brought the sunshine out" he half-gestured toward the rare, clearing sky. "It means a lot."

She nodded, not trusting her voice, suddenly. Must be the ghosts, she reasoned; she suspected they'd be gone by the time the Beef Burgandy was served. At least, mostly gone...

-----


End file.
